] Still not quite getting it, she acknowledges to herself that Radcliffe, et al might be quite right about the vile nature of human beings in such places as Italy, Switzerland and the south of France but in England people behave much better.

A lot of the books Catherine has been reading, and Udolpho in particular, is set in the south of France and in Italy. And despite Catherine's earlier claim that she felt that she knew just what it must be like from the author's description, it really gives only a vague notion of what it is like there. Radcliffe's writing, especially, is filled with anachronisms with references to customs and objects that were certainly nowhere near southern France in the late 1500s--but to have her story set in a faraway time and place lends an aura of mystery to it.